The title says it all… We began classes in the first week of September. Everyone is required to take Management of Community Development Programs, Research Methodology Seminar, and Kiswahili, while the other two classes are filled with electives. My two electives are History of East Africa and Contemporary Educational Issues in East Africa— both of these classes are fulfilling requirements for my minor in Black Studies back at PC!! WOOHOO!
Our classes are very much focused on the research projects that we have created and selected and will be completing when we spend our month in the villages in the Mufindi District of Tanzania. My research project is currently undergoing review with the IRB at Providence, but a if you want a little sneak peak: it will include a documentary film on what the members of the village I am living in envision to be their “dream community” and what it takes to get there 🙂 I am hoping to continue this research in some of the townships in Cape Town this upcoming summer and do a comparative study between my village in Tanzania and one of the townships in Cape Town!! We’ll see how it all goes 🙂
I have to say that the first week of classes was really challenging. The teaching styles much different in Tanzania than in the United States (all of our teachers are local professors). The teaching style is much slower, more repetitive and less conversation based— so it is pretty much just lectures which is something that I initially struggled with, especially in my History of East Africa Class.
SIDENOTE: With the first week of classes came a deep appreciation for pants. That’s right, you heard it, pants. I never realized how much I love pants until I came here and now have to wear a skirt every. single. day. Also, little things I really miss like being able to wear shorts and going for a run. It is hard to go running in Tanzania as a female and I oftentimes feel awkward or that I am disrespecting the culture wearing leggings or shorts to run. So it has been a really big frustration for me not being able to do what I love and what relieves my stress. ALSO. WARM SHOWERS AND WASHERS. PEOPLE. DO NOT TAKE THESE THINGS FOR GRANTED. Bucket showers are not that bad, but sometimes after a long day all you want is a hot shower and all we have here is cold water. Also, laundry is difficult to do here. We have our multi-purpose buckets which we use for this, but wringing out clothes is no joke and I’ve built up some serious callouses on my hands from this— doing laundry means committing to like two hours of this. Of course, listening to some music can help pass the time.
Why else was the first week challenging? LET ME TELL YOU TWO WORDS: FAKE. ROOMMATES. Yep, you heard me right. One night I am sitting in my dorm room with my friend Danie when all of the sudden there is a knock on the door and someone says HODI! (Can I come in?) I think it is one of the girls in the group since we are practically the only ones on campus because classes have not yet been for Tanzanians. The door opens and there is a girl I do not know. She comes in and declares that she is my roommate. Danie immediately apologizes for being on her side of the room and Danie and I move her mattress next door to her room (she had been living with me in my room until our roommates were to come). This new “roommate” of mine, begins moving in her things and immediately gets changed to shower. She puts me on the phone with her father to try and talk to him and greet him in Swahili and she asks to use my bucket— of course I agree, I feel bad because she has told me the she has been traveling all day and I want my new roommate to be comfortable. I felt weird because I knew our roommates were not supposed t0 come for a few weeks and all of a sudden mine popped up! Oh yeah, her name is Domina by the way. Domino comes back from showering and is sitting in a towel in the room, she expresses that she feels bad and insists that Danie move backing the room. She wanted Danie to move her mattress back in so that Danie and I could share a bed and Domina could sleep on her mattress because she did not yet have one (Tanzanian friends share beds all the time — its a common thing here). I said no no and that it was okay because Domina was my roommate and Danie was just a girl from my program that lived next door, I began to explain to Domina how Danie and I were just rooming together until our Tanzanian roommates came! And then, out of nowhere Domina says, “I have a confession!” I said what?? She says, “I’M NOT YOUR ROOMMATE!” I have a mini panic attack and go get the other girls in my group, Danie and I call up Paulo our program coordinator, while Sophie and Shelby distract Domina in my room and make sure that everything is okay. Paulo shows up, its close to midnight now (and his birthday is the next day— sorry Paulo love you long time), and starts arguing with Domina in Swahili until she finally leaves. He later explains that last year the CIEE group had a problem like this but the girl stole a lot of money and items from the CIEE girls—I was just shaken up by the whole experience, but very happy that all of my things were okay and secure. This LARGE experience (as we call it in our group) only made me more nervous to receive my roommate in the future.
ANYWAYS BACK TO BUSINESS: The classes in the first few weeks were every very serious. Our first Kiswahili test took me almost two hours, and our class is only 50 minutes!!! But I really really love the language so I do not mind it that much. For our Managing Community Development Programs and contemporary Educational Issues in East Africa classes we have begun weekly site visits. For Managing Community Development Programs we visited the Matumaini (hope) Center – a vocational training center and nursery/pre-primary school for girls who become pregnant before 18. Their Facebook page is here: https://www.facebook.com/Matumaini-Centre-441601072602626/. The center gives training in tailoring, informal basic education, and computer skills. After two years, the girl is supposed to graduate from the program and receive a sewing machine so she can start her own business. Because funds are low she does not always receive a sewing machine. A bright spot of this program is that now women who went through the program in the early 1990s are the people in charge of the NGO. Programs for pregnant teenage girls are in great demand in Tanzania, because Tanzania does not allow girls to continue formal education following pregnancy unless the parents pay for private schooling. In Tanzania 22.8% of 15-19 year old girls in 2010 were or had been pregnant so this is a significant proportion of the population. SIDENOTE: WE GOT TO SEE A LOT OF BABIES AND THEY WERE HANDS DOWN ADORABLE.
A second program we visited is the orphanage of Iringa called Upendo Center, which means Love!!! This organization seeks to take care of “street children” and reconnect these children (who there is a very strong stigma around in the surrounding community) with family situations that are healthy. Tanzanian law states that kids can only stay in the orphanage for 6 months and then they must be placed in family homes, but the center does not always follow this. Children currently staying in the orphanage have been reentered into the formal school system or are taught vocational skills such as masonry, carpentry, and tailoring. Tanzania runs on the British structure of the education system, so kids must reenter through passing one of the national exams in Standard 4, St 7, Form 2, F 4, or F 6. Just this year the president announced the deletion of Standard 7, so next year kids who would have been in Standard 7 will be put immediately into middle school. Anyway it’s a difficult process to gain re-admittance to the system.
With Contemporary Educational Issues in East Africa I visited St. Dominic’s, a private catholic primary and pre-primary school on Friday. This is one of the best schools in Iringa people!!! Our professor’s daughter attends this school so we were able to meet her, and she is in Class 5:) Every you go in this school there are signs that read “SPEAK ENLIGH ONLY,” this is because this school has opted to be an English medium school and Kiswahili is one of the elective classes offered, along with personal development/PE and computer classes. In Tanzanian public schools, English is the medium of post-primary formal education, but this will change in the next year due to the new government.
Our Swahili class has been challenging us in more ways than one. One of our classes included being given a list of times to retrieve and having an hour to buy and bargain for as many items as we could at the Soko (market) with the TSH 5000 our teacher gave us. YES. To answer your question, my group won, my competitiveness has not decreased one bit here in Tanz.
“Hamna UHM” (No uhh!!!) Is also something you here most frequently in our Swahili classes. There is no “uhms… ahhhhss… hmmmsss….” in our Swahili class. Not using the word uhm when learning a language is incredibly hard, I will legit say outlaid “Delina, do not say uhm,” Take a breath and then uhm will still come out of my mouth before I speak Swahili. This is a frustrating and funny challenge that all of the girls have been having— no worries, we are working on it. Our teacher Paulo is trying to help us to be okay with silence when we are thinking what to say, he always says, “listen and think to understand, not always to respond, silence is okay in Kiswahili.”
SOME FAV swahili phrases so far: Ninakipenda chakula ( I LOVE FOOD)
Tuesdays, we have special coffee days. Justin, will come and bring us coffee and tea (sidenote: yes I like tea now. I KNOW. SHOCKER. But the tea here is SWEET, when I say SWEET, I MEAN SWEET, which is crazy because I also love black coffee, but the chai ya rangi – plain chai or chai ya maziwa- chai with milk — its to die for here)and we will have a local activist come and talk to us. This has included people like Justin’s wife, Sarah who works for an organization called Shikamana and does a ton of research for John Hopkins around sex workers in Tanzania to Juma, Justin’s son teaching us about the life of a “third culture kid.” We have also had Mia who works with an organization called Karibu Tanzania, which works on women empowerment through futball. And has created the first women soccer leagues here in Tanz!! Really incredible work 🙂 IT IS SO COOL!!! (her adult education programs are online at: http://www.kaributanzania.or.tz/) Partnering with the Tanzanian Sports Ministry, her adult education colleges are starting to provide certification to women to become soccer coaches and referees. Women in this program will then be matched to nearby primary and secondary schools to start soccer teams for the girls in that region. Also the professional women’s league begins in November in Tanzania!!!
Every weekend here we also have really fun and cool planned excursions. In our first few weeks here we visited Isimila, a museum of Stone Age weapons and tools and a park with really cool rock formations!! We have also learned to make traditional Tanzanian food — this was like an entire day task people. NOT KIDDING IT TOOK 6 HOURS — boy was I hungry. We made chapati really yummy flour based, tortilla looking thing, (which I have also picked up as a nickname CHAPA-DEE 😉 We also learned how to make sambusas, while the other cooking mamas made a really yummy coconut chickpea mix, kuku (chicken), ugali, wali na maharage (rice and beans), and a ton of other yummy things 🙂 THE FOOD WAS SO WORTHIT AT THE END I ATE SO SO SO MUCH. We also hiked up to Gangilonga (“The Talking Stone”) with Justin’s fam. This is the big rock that overlooks Iringa and it is called the talking stone because when Chief Mkwawa was fighting off the German Occupation in Iringa back in the day, he would come up to this rock and speak with the others in his army to make decisions for further plans. PRETTY COOL. Really cool amazing view!!!
To de-stress, Danie and I often go to bead with some of the Masaai mamas down at the market down the road. They have taught us how to bead like pros— I can now make layered bracelets!! If you want one, HIT ME UP. Also while beading here we have discovered street porridge and its the bomb — legit so yummy. I was eating some out of a cup one day at the market and an elder woman walked up to me and said “OH! YOU WILL BE FAT SOON!!” Which made me laugh, because I eat so dang much, but apparently is a compliment here in Tanz.
Every month we also attend an African movie night, typically at our favorite Neema Cafe (they also usually hold an Indian food buffet for us before- which is the bomb and we get popcorn during the movie too!!! WOO WOO). This first month’s selection was called “The First Grader” and took place in Kenya following the government decreeing education was a fundamental right. It was about an elderly man from the Mau Mau who went back to learn in a public school in Kenya because the government said “free education for ALL.” This is probably my FAVORITE MOVIE EVER— it will make you laugh and cry and give you ALL of the feels. WATCH IT. The policy this film is based on is – and I’m not kidding – named Harambee (pronounced Harambe RIP), and every time it is mentioned in East African Education, Helen in our group just can’t refrain from laughing.
Friday nights at this place called the Greek Club they also hold movie showings! Really obscure but funny movies and a really good way to de-stress at the end of the week!
SIDENOTE: Our coordinator justin gave us a list of challenges called “The Wazungu Challenge” (White person challenge) — if we complete 90-95 things on the list by the end of the program we get a prize, only like three people have completed the challenge in the past — IT IS MY GOAL TO FINISH THIS CHALLENGE! Anyways, one of the activities includes catching a goat and rubbing its back/stomach— THANK GOODNESS FOR HELEN. We were walking to the Greek Club one of the first Fridays in Iringa and a herd of goats starts to run by us. We immediately start running at the goats and as we are screaming at them, Helen finds the courage to grab one of the ropes wrapped around one of the goats necks. She grabs it and holds it long enough for all of us to rub the goat. THIS GIRL IS THE GOAT OKAY!!! Goat herder Helen coming in clutch — love you pretty girl!!!
The first month or so of this program also brought along some birthday celebrations— which means great chocolate cake, great company, me making crowns out of napkins and MAMA IRINGAS (this amazing Italian restaurant on the outskirts of Iringa Town – where you can eat pizza and pasta to your hearts desire). We were able to celebrate Paulo, our program directors birthday— shout out to you BABA Pauly-D!! Also, tried to find Paulo Kiti Moto (his fv food) at a place called CCM— its a strip of places not a single place for your info— very overwhelming experience to say the least. AND OF COURSE: we celebrated Danie’s birthday!!!!! ONE OF MY BFFS!! past few weeks have been birthday weeks for our director Paulo and my friend Danie. What a great way to spend your 21st birthday!!! Pizza and chocolate cake yum yum!!
As time has progressed we have all been diligently working on our research projects. Our Literature Reviews took up a ton of time in the first few weeks and we also had our first draft proposal due.
THE GIRLS ROOM: OKAY SHOUT OUT TO MY IRINGA GIRLS!!! The girls on this trip are amazing. Our group dynamic is often inexplicable but we are legit the BEST. GROUP. EVER. We cause fujo (chaos in Kiswahili) on the daily but I love every single one of them to death.
In Sophie’s words, “How did I get to be in Tanzania with this group of people?” These girls are here for everything and anything — whether it be birthdays, fake roommates, catching goats, venting sessions — love you pretty girls with my whole heart — you deserve all the credit in the world.
FUN FACT: We have three to four cats living in our dorms. three of them look the same and are kinda orange. Daniel has named all of them collectively to be “King Richard the Third,” I do not like these cats because they constantly squeal, but hey they are good company I guess.
That’s all for the first few weeks of classes rafiki (friends)!!
More posts to come on the rest of this large experience,
Nakupenda sana (Love you very much)!!
Deelightfully traveling,
CHAPA-DEE 🙂
Deelightful World Travels 